Good eye, man! The nose is there, but was molded from .020 PETG plastic which is crystal clear. This yields a nose cone in the 1.5 gram range after adding a 3mm depron disk inside. The shock-cord (the line that attached the fuselage to the nose and parachute is run externally on this model. It gets bonded to the root of one fin and is taped to the side of the model near the CG of the empty body with a burned out motor in the motor mount. The nose cone just has the shock-cord pass through a loop of line or through a small hole in its base. This allows it to slide down the line once the parachute is ejected and it hangs with the body at the CG. When I snapped the photo it was mostly out of sight on the opposite side.

The reason for suspending the model horizontally (I could have done a better job of this) is that it presents a greater surface to the air during descent. This is supposed to assist in getting a longer duration. At least that is the theory.

I know what you mean about the club launches. I was spoiled in California with three great clubs all of which had call-in waivers for flights to 15,000 feet. Now I am on the east coast and there is nothing close.

If you're up for the drive, MDRA has a 15,000 ft waiver and monthly launches. Might be too far ...

Yep, every kid who ever flew rockets, dreamed of building and flying one of these. Challenging kit to be sure. This is one to take your time on, bit by bit. Assembly and painting, I did over two months time. Don't bother flying it on a D12-3 when you get done. This one is flying on an AT F35-5 reloadable, in the 24x60 case. I replaced the two 24 inch parachutes with a pair of 32 inch Dyna's. The 18 inch chute for the upper portion was replaced with one of the original 24 inch chutes. To get it to balance, I had to put about 3oz of lead and epoxy on the nose, for a total of 21oz flying weight. After all that time building and painting, I almost chickened out on flying it. But after all the careful planning, it was a complete success. Too bad I had to wait over 40 years to fulfill my childhood dream. If you have something stewing, stir the pot. You can do it!

These are my attempts at sugar (KnO3) rockets. The big one has a 10 inch sugar motor and a simple recovery system that will prevent it from hurting anyone on its way down but basically they are all single use. The two smaller star trek inspired ones probably wont even fly upward considering that they have huge saucer sections forward the engines which are 5 inch sugar motors . I have a ten foot tall launch rod which should give them a good start.